ARG !!! grilled usb drive ??? help !

[zelda_pinwheel]

okay, so which of you hardware gourous knows how to fix a "non recognized usb device" under windows ??

i took my designs over to a client meeting today on my usb key drive, and at the end of the meeting the client just pulled the drive out of the port without properly ejecting it. now when i plug it in at home it says "usb device not recognized by windows" and that the device has malfunctioned.

is there any way to make it work again ??? please tell me there is... i've got some stuff on there that i kind of need.

(stupid computer illiterate people breaking my stuff... arg !!!)

[jamesdmanley]

ive never had any luck recovering a damaged usb drive. sorry

[zelda_pinwheel]

oh, cr*p. that's what i was afraid of. grrrrrrrr.

(thanks for answering. although it wasn't what i wanted to hear, of course.)

[Nate the great]

I've only managed to rescue the hardware in a situation like this, not the data.

P.S. The only suggestion I have is that you could have Patricia throw something at the client's head.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

I've only managed to rescue the hardware in a situation like this, not the data.

P.S. The only suggestion I have is that you could have Patricia throw something at the client's head.

that suggestion sounds pretty good to me right now. patricia, are you available for "throwing something at usb-killing client's head" ? i will provide suitable projectiles.

[zelda_pinwheel]

wait. when you say, "rescue the hardware", does that mean at least the drive might work again, in future, even if i lose what's currently on it ? what should i do ?

[zelda_pinwheel]

okay, well i'm getting crankier by the minute, but the client may actually be innocent (hold fire until i confirm, patricia). it's not the drive (necessarily...) that's malfunctioning. it's the ports. ALL of the ports. now none of my usb drives are recognized, including my 500go external backup drive. i've rebooted twice now (you never know...), no change. farking windows. i remember having a problem like this after re-installing my system once. i don't remember how i fixed it but i remember it took me days of trawling through forums and trying many many obscure "fixes" that weren't. i think i bookmarked the one that actually worked though. i hope.

i'm upgrading my computer this week and it looks like it's just in time (maybe even a few days too late).

[Nate the great]

Sometimes you can forcibly reformat the flash drive.

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

okay, well i'm getting crankier by the minute, but the client may actually be innocent (hold fire until i confirm, patricia). it's not the drive (necessarily...) that's malfunctioning. it's the ports. ALL of the ports. now none of my usb drives are recognized, including my 500go external backup drive. i've rebooted twice now (you never know...), no change. farking windows. i remember having a problem like this after re-installing my system once. i don't remember how i fixed it but i remember it took me days of trawling through forums and trying many many obscure "fixes" that weren't. i think i bookmarked the one that actually worked though. i hope.

i'm upgrading my computer this week and it looks like it's just in time (maybe even a few days too late).

Zeep, try going to the website of the company that makes the computer. They may have USB drivers that you can specifically download and reinstall. Sometimes a driver becomes corrupted .... it happens.

If it is just a gorked driver, that's usually a pretty easy fix.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

Sometimes you can forcibly reformat the flash drive.

yeah. i suppose you probably have to have working usb ports for that though. *sigh*.

Originally Posted by RickyMaveety

Zeep, try going to the website of the company that makes the computer. They may have USB drivers that you can specifically download and reinstall. Sometimes a driver becomes corrupted .... it happens.

If it is just a gorked driver, that's usually a pretty easy fix.

yes, it's probably the driver. i think it's actually a windows driver i need, not a hardware driver (plus, if it were a hardware driver, i'd have to figure out which current part came from where, since i've changed the insides bit by bit probably several times over in the past few years). i've found the solution that ended up working for me last time (thank god for bookmarks...), and i present it for your edification and possible future need. after all the insane variations including going so far as to edit the registry (i didn't actually do that one), the one that worked was :
- shut down computer
- unplug computer
- push and hold power button for about 30 seconds
- plug computer back in and reboot.

alternately, unplug the computer and leave it unplugged for about 15 minutes. it resets the reptile brain of the computer, or something.

if that doesn't work, and the problem doesn't magically go away over night (you never know. after all, it "magically" appeared sometime this afternoon, since everything was working this morning), i'm not even going to bother with it. as i said, i'm upgrading everything in the next week or so and i'll have to reinstall the system and everything then, and given that that is possibly my least favorite activity in the WORLD, i'm not going to torture myself with even more installations ahead of time. it can only go to hell in a handbasket for a few more days anyway.

thanks though for the suggestions.

[DixieGal]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

okay, well i'm getting crankier by the minute, but the client may actually be innocent (hold fire until i confirm, patricia). it's not the drive (necessarily...) that's malfunctioning. it's the ports. ALL of the ports. now none of my usb drives are recognized, including my 500go external backup drive. i've rebooted twice now (you never know...), no change. farking windows. i remember having a problem like this after re-installing my system once. i don't remember how i fixed it but i remember it took me days of trawling through forums and trying many many obscure "fixes" that weren't. i think i bookmarked the one that actually worked though. i hope.

i'm upgrading my computer this week and it looks like it's just in time (maybe even a few days too late).

This happened to me 2 months ago. By any chance, did you happen to download Windows update "service pack 3" lately? This is such an awful one out there that MS is giving free unlimited tech help. I spent 11 (ELEVEN!!) hrs on the phone with Microsoft before they recommended reformatting the hard drive and gave up. Reformatting just made things worse, and none of the USB ports ever came back to life. Completely ruined the machine. I'm gonna do to it what Ricky is doing to a bunch of hers, or else take it out into the woods and blast it full of holes. The computer itself is OK, unless you want to connect something via USB.

[zelda_pinwheel]

hallelujah !!! the "easiest computer fix ever" usb fix saves the day AGAIN, AND my little usb drive thingie is not grilled after all !!!! (so, no need to throw things at the client's head after all, for the moment. talk about a coincidence though).

dixiegal, i highly recommend you try my fix : it's probably as close to a miracle as we'll ever see in our daily lives. (and then you can call back microsoft's tech support, and tell them where they can go).

and no, i haven't installed sp3 (still on sp2) because i prefer to wait for the early-adopter fallout (reviews) when it comes to M$ "service" packs, and i heard a few bad things about sp3...

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

yeah. i suppose you probably have to have working usb ports for that though. *sigh*.



yes, it's probably the driver. i think it's actually a windows driver i need, not a hardware driver (plus, if it were a hardware driver, i'd have to figure out which current part came from where, since i've changed the insides bit by bit probably several times over in the past few years). i've found the solution that ended up working for me last time (thank god for bookmarks...), and i present it for your edification and possible future need. after all the insane variations including going so far as to edit the registry (i didn't actually do that one), the one that worked was :
- shut down computer
- unplug computer
- push and hold power button for about 30 seconds
- plug computer back in and reboot.

alternately, unplug the computer and leave it unplugged for about 15 minutes. it resets the reptile brain of the computer, or something.

if that doesn't work, and the problem doesn't magically go away over night (you never know. after all, it "magically" appeared sometime this afternoon, since everything was working this morning), i'm not even going to bother with it. as i said, i'm upgrading everything in the next week or so and i'll have to reinstall the system and everything then, and given that that is possibly my least favorite activity in the WORLD, i'm not going to torture myself with even more installations ahead of time. it can only go to hell in a handbasket for a few more days anyway.

thanks though for the suggestions.

Not necessarily. Most of the time the USB ports are either a part of the motherboard, or they are on a separate card. If you are talking about a laptop, then the manufacturer of the laptop probably has the drivers for the mobo as well.

However, you are correct in that often it's just a matter of the drivers being a part of windows. In which case, you can pop into your control panel and see if the usb ports are listed and if there is a ? next to them. Sometimes, if you just uninstall them from your hardware profile, and start up your computer again, it will reinstall them when you next boot up.

It's worth a try anyway.

[zelda_pinwheel]

yes. but see my latest post above.

(it's not a portable, it's a desktop ; i've got 2 ports in the back on the motherboard, and 2 ports in the front, presumably on a separate card. none of them were recognized, but they're all back again.)

[jamesdmanley]

glad you got it fixed! the problems ive had typically involved what appeared to be the loss of the FAT table on the drive which i was not able to find a way to fix.